Topline
Taylor Swift fans will have an additional 38 chances to see the superstar perform in 2024, after the singer announced another international leg of her Eras tour, but many of those fans won’t need to break the bank to do so, as stricter international ticketing regulations could prevent the markups that led some U.S.-based Swifties to pay thousands for resold tickets.
Swift announced another leg of her Eras tour on Tuesday, with 38 stops in 15 countries.
Key Facts
When they first went on sale, Swift’s U.S. tickets were reportedly priced from $49 to $499 (plus fees), but many of those tickets were ultimately purchased and resold, leading fans to pay much higher prices—retail prices reportedly stretched as high as $35,438 for floor tickets in Atlanta or $17,010 for tickets in Arizona.
Tickets for the 2024 leg of Swift’s tour haven’t gone on sale yet, but massive price increases on the secondary market aren’t possible in many countries Swift is visiting because of ticketing regulations.
In Poland, Italy, Ireland and France—where Swift has seven shows total—for-profit ticket resales are banned, heavily reducing the chances of inordinate ticket prices, and Japan—where Swift has four stops—passed an anti-scalping law in 2019, in preparation for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, which prohibits people from reselling tickets at prices higher than their retail value for commercial purposes.
Late last year, the European Union approved the Digital Services Act, requiring resellers of tickets to provide proof of identification and contact information, and mandating third-party sellers on resales sites disclose themselves—in an attempt to reduce manipulative ticket resale practices.
In the U.K., resale tickets sold on the site Eventim, one of Ticketmaster’s competitors, are capped at face value plus booking fees, and in the Netherlands tickets are capped at a 20% markup from face value, Sam Shemtob, the managing director of the ticket resale advocacy group Face-value European Alliance for Ticketing, told NBC News.
In Sydney, Australia—where Swift has three shows—resale laws state that tickets cannot be resold for more than 10% above the original cost.
On top of the resale restrictions, the practice of dynamic pricing—or adjusting ticket prices based on demand—is less common in Europe than in the U.S., though some big-name artists have reportedly played U.K. shows with dynamic pricing.
Additionally, Ticketmaster—which gained control over much of the U.S. ticket industry in 2010 after it merged with Live Nation—does not have the same power over the concert market in Europe, like it does in the U.S., with competitors like Eventim and Dice also serving as prominent ticket sellers across the continent.
News Peg
Swift announced another leg of her Eras tour on Tuesday, with 38 stops in 15 countries, including the U.K., Japan, France, Sweden, Italy, Spain, Ireland, Australia, Germany, Poland, Portugal, Singapore, Austria, the Netherlands and Switzerland. Swift also recently announced stops this fall in Mexico, Argentina and Brazil.
Key Background
While it’s unclear exactly how much the tickets on this upcoming international leg of the Eras tour will be, fans in some markets have reason to be hopeful. Tickets for Swift shows in Mexico and South America were substantially cheaper than U.S. tickets. For fans seeing Swift later this year in Argentina, prices were reportedly 75,000 pesos or $153 per ticket, excluding fees. Swift is currently touring across the U.S. on a 52-show U.S. tour, where many fans paid thousands of dollars to see Swift perform songs from her entire discography. But getting fans to Swift’s U.S. performances wasn’t without its bumps. Swift made headlines in November, after Ticketmaster’s website crashed during the pre-sale ticket drop for the Eras tour. Ticketmaster temporarily suspended sales after fans waited for hours and tickets were oversold. In a statement, Swift said Ticketmaster “assured” her the company could manage the high demand and manage the situation. The ticket fiasco led to a Senate judiciary subcommittee hearing in which Live Nation President Joe Berch told blamed “industrial scalpers” and a “cyberattack” for the Swift meltdown. Since the hearing, legislators and President Joe Biden have shown support for limiting fees and making concerts more affordable and equitable for Americans. Last week, Ticketmaster promised it would display all-in prices—including mandatory fees that often appear at checkout for customers—for venues it owns and give customers the option to view all-in pricing at other venues.
Big Number
$92,149. That’s how much some resale tickets to the Eras tour were listed for on StubHub.
Further Reading
Springsteen Tickets For $4,000? How Dynamic Pricing Works And How You Can Beat The System. (USA Today)
Ticketmaster Will Promise No More ‘Junk Fees’ At Biden Event (Forbes)
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/anafaguy/2023/06/21/taylor-swift-adds-dozens-of-overseas-shows-heres-why-tickets-could-be-a-lot-cheaper-than-in-the-us/